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Does new tech always mean more tech ? We give you some interesting tips, tricks and insights on how to “simplify” the ever growing clutter of technology into your daily life. With music from Esem “Laidegg” provided by the www.spacemusic.nl podcast we chill into an intersting episode on how to simplify the technology that in your life by using virtualisation, cloud computing and plain old common sence.

What never stops to amaze me is the equation between number of CPU cycles needed by professional applications and number of CPU Cycles needed by Games. in the “good old days” a game like ‘Larry in the land of the lounge lizards” ( The original one , where all you wanted to do is go upstairs and do the “bouncing block” with that lady ) was only about One floppy drive large and did not send your AT or XT pc’s CPU cycle into lunar orbit. If you were doing some serious Lotus 123’ing, or recalculating some graphs or god forbid, working with Access or something , THEN your gigantic steel Ibm clunker would be panting and sweating while you had time to grab coffee.

These days its the other way around. While I can perfectly do whatever i need to do for “professional activities” on just about any old pc that’s still lying about the house, (Thank you Openoffice and Linux), I need to pass the ‘Games Display’ at the average toy store without being able to purchase a single thing. Even the minimal specs of your average games (which i like to call the “Jerky-Blocky-crappy-settings”) ask for the processing power of a little big-blue computer. The amount of ram, insane graphical specs and demented CPU levels required for ” High-Detailed-performance” are bloody insane. As Openoffice (and Microsoft Office) runs fine on a one gigahertz system with a gig of ram, the average game in the store demands that I get me a new computer.

Now when did it become a fact that computer based entertainment got linked to machines that are able to brute force a quantum computer based password within the lifespan of your average parrot ? When did it become imperative (yes IMPERATIVE) that in order to “enjoy” shooting the bad guy, you just HAVE to see ever single splatter of nose snot arc in a mathematically correct and super-realistic-high-def-500fps arc, before hearing the Dolby surround crunch of his body hitting the ground ?

Am I to be considered old and possibly obsolete that I frown at this over-detailed level of entertainment ? Am I “out of date” when I search for items like “playability, enjoyment, entertainment, challenge and FUN” in this 1080p landscape of 512-bit colors ? Dementia might even be setting in because I could not care a flying duck about “being able to see the mud splatter underneath the enemy’s tires”. You know what ? When I DO want to se ‘mud splatter around’ in a high resolution picture, an infinite resolution and frame rate AND with full immersion technology .. I GO OUTSIDE !!!!! . YEs ! That great game called REALITY that looks SOOO much like some of these first person shooters when it comes to details, its amazing ? Game-Nerds minds boggle as they ponder what Graphics card must power the gigantic display called “A WINDOW”. What gravitational subroutine powers the rainstorm and how many pixels it takes to make all those drops of rain.

So come and join me in my virtual old-folks home where I can tell tall tales about “how games used to be”. Enter and benefit in the magic of “obsolete copy rights” that allow you to DOWNLOAD a lot of classic games FOR FREE. Do yourself a favor, drag up an old clunker and get cracking with some of these great classic games. No I’m not talking 8-bit abandon ware (although you can have a great time with those too), I’m talking C&C1, Mech Commander 2 and more

If there is one thing that has probably saved some geek-marriages, then it must be tools like "logmein". Even in a small country like Belgium its not always a fun experience to get up , hop in the car and drive some 20 miles to some godforsaken little town in order to click on the right mouse button of your aunty Joe’s laptop.

Bless you "Logmein" for providing stable and free tools for remote controlling computers over the internet. All you need is a browser to connect to the internet and presto, you can control auntie Joe’s computer without having to go over there.

Lets face it, last time you went over, being leg-humped by her aging Parisian Poodle was not the highpoint of your day. So being able to help her out REMOTELY is grand ! That is IF you installed the logmein CLIENT when you where there. Oops ! You forgot about that one didn’t you ? Right between having a sip of rather stale lemonade that she had in the fridge and having to pretend to liked the god awful cookie she served you. You HAD planned to do that. The only troublesome experience in your entire swim through the preface of ‘remote domination’ of your aunts pc WOULD have been making an account on logmein, adding your aunts computer, downloading and installing the client, remembering the logmein account data PLUS your aunts Windows password. But the hump-hungry poodle got you sidetracked didn’t it ?

Thus you peer with a sense of dread at your ringing cellphone as humping poodles dance in your minds eye. With no local client installed its going to be stale lemonade, cookies and poodles all over again if you fail to resolve the issue by phone.. UNLESS.. you use logmein express !

A new feature of the "logmein free" suite is this "logmein express" mode , where you only need to give the person who’s computer you want to control, the address of the logmein express website where they can download the client.

It only might take you five seconds of explaining to tell the person on the other end how to download and open the .exe file in order to install the client remotely. When this is done they get a 12 digit security code that YOU in turn have to enter on the same web page and … voilà ! Remote control.

So next time aunty Joe calls , little French Fifi is going to be dry-humping the couch while the last trickles of pop leave the stale lemonade bottle for ever. After she proudly gives you the 12 digit access number, you are in full control of ANY computer, regardless of the fact if you have "visited" it before to install the client . Sure this is not the same seamless control we are used to with the logmein "client" (No users consent required) but it DOES help when you need to do support on those "one time only" remote visits for who-ever it may concern.

So you might want to keep this link handy whenever you get the next pesky phone-call and remote control ANY computer using a free tool.

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knightwise… huh?

Knightwise.com is a cross platform website and podcast that makes technology work for you and not the other way around. The place to go for all geeks who slide between Mac, IOS, Android, Linux and Windows offering an essential mix of hacks, tips, howto's and tweaks spiced up with a dash of geek culture.